Tag Archives: clean

Guilt free banana, blueberry & peanut butter bread

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I can promise you that the title is not a trick; this really is a guilt free treat.

Thanks to the ‘caveman’ paleo plan there is such a thing as sin free cake. The paleo plan focuses on eating what our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten, steering clear of processed foods. This twist on a classic banana bread is full of completely healthy and wholesome ingredients and provides a healthy sweet treat for breakfast, dessert or an afternoon snack.

I’ll admit that the peanut butter isn’t paelo but I couldn’t resist; the slightly salty & crunchy texture against the sweet moist bread proves an ideal combination.

The recipe is adapted from a pumpkin bread recipe on www.paleoplan.com, which is a great site if you’re a follower of the paleo plan, or even if you want to try new recipes using some alternative ingredients. If you fancy knocking this up from what you’ve got in your cupboard though, simply switch the flour used here for regular plain flour. One of the great things about banana bread is that you can add whatever you want, so if not blueberries why not try walnuts and dates or pumpkin seeds and cranberries.

Ingredients:
– ½ cup almond flour
– 1 tbsp cinnamon
-1/4tsp ground ginger
– ½ tsp baking powder
– 2 heaped tbsp peanut butter (organic Meridian smooth is the BEST)
– 2 large eggs
– 3 ripe mashed bananas
– 3tbsp coconut oil
– 1tbsp vanilla extract (natural)
– 1 cup blueberries

Method:
– Preheat the oven to about 180 and line a baking tin with a little bit of the coconut oil.
– Mix the cinnamon, ginger and baking powder in to a bowl. In a separate bowl add the peanut butter, eggs, coconut oil, and vanilla, mashed bananas, blueberries and flour until well combined.
– Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture and mix well.
– Pour the mixture in to the lined tin and bake for about 40-50 minutes. Allow to cool before slicing. Topping with more peanut butter afterwards is optional but highly recommended.

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Forget the Sunday roast

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After getting home at 4am following a night of dancing, my friend Liana and I decided that we were going to get smoked salmon for lunch the next day, or later that day should I say.
But after a slightly longer than planned lie in (I think all that dancing had worn me out) and a lengthy gym session it was time for dinner rather than lunch – and we were in charge of cooking for the whole family!

Chicken is pretty central to our diets so dinner was of course centred around that.

So here is our take on a classic Sunday dinner: Mediterranean chicken

You will need:
As many chicken breast as you like (we had five)
One can chopped tomatoes
One jar passata
Aubergine
Courgette
Garlic
Onion
Olives
Sundried tomatoes
Peppers
Capers
Sunflower seeds (toasted under the grill for a few mins)
Pumpkin seeds (toasted under the grill for a few mins)
Fresh basil

Whilst the chicken is baking in the oven, prep the veg for roasting.
Leave out the capers, olives, sundried tomatoes and nuts. Add the veg to a roasting tin before adding the chopped tomatoes, passata and some cracked black pepper.
Once the vegetables are cooked, chop the chicken and stir in before adding the olives, sundried tomatoes, toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds and fresh basil.

Another simple yet extremely tasty meal that sticks to the clean eating plan. For those who want to add something exta, throw in some sweet potato to the roasted vegetables.

Homemade Mediterranean chicken

Homemade Mediterranean chicken

#cleantreats

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You can go right ahead and file this one under #cleantreats.

Finding a sweet treat to satisfy that after dinner craving when you’re an avid follower of a clean eating plan can be a daily battle.
But treating yourself after dinner needn’t be such a struggle anymore. Whilst having an active weekend with my best friend and fellow clean eater, (dancing until it was too painful to walk in our heels and trying out fun new exercises at the gym), we discovered the perfect sweet treat – minus the sugar, chocolate and all of the other bad things we tend to avoid.

Protein pancakes.

All you need is two eggs (one whole egg and one egg white) and three scoops of protein powder. We tried vanilla and chocolate but they would work with any.
Add a little bit of coconut oil to a pan after creating your pancake “batter” – add some water to the mix if it is too glooopy – and pour a small amount in to the pan. Basically, you make them the same way as any other pancakes!
It genuinely is that simple (although it did take us a few tries to perfect them but by the fifth pancake we had definitely mastered it.
Check it out…

Chocolate protein pancake with stewed plums and frozen berries.

Chocolate protein pancake with stewed plums and frozen berries.

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Chocolate protein pancake - it was tastier than it looks, promise!

Chocolate protein pancake – it was tastier than it looks, promise!

We topped ours with stewed plums (courtesy of Liana’s fantastic mum Anne) and frozen fruit. Not only did they satisfy our sweet tooth but we got our protein hit too, an ideal combination.

The rest of the weekend was as usual centred around food and exercise so I thought I’d share some of the other creations we made. Check them out on the next post.